Tag: Gokhan Saki

To be honest, we’re not huge kickboxing fans here at CagePotato. In fact, we used to sacrifice kickboxers to high school wrestlers and BJJ blue belts in illegal challenge matches in the basement of CagePotato HQ until Johnny Law put a stop to it.

But we’re writing about this awful injury now because Tyrone Spong is still an MMA fighter (he’s 2-0 and fights for WSOF, in case you forgot) and this so closely mirrors Anderson Silva‘s (in)famous leg break that we had no choice but to post it (either that or it’s a slow news day, pick one).

On Saturday, Spong was fighting at GLORY 15 in Istanbul in a one night tournament. He bested Saulo Cavalari in the semifinals and faced Gokhan Saki in the finals. The leg break occurred only 97 seconds into the fight, when Saki checked one of Spong’s kicks. Here’s a GIF (via Zombie Prophet) in case you can’t watch the video:

If you’ve followed kickboxing and MMA for a while, chances are you’re familiar with Golden Glory thanks in large part to fighters like Alistair Overeem, Semmy Schilt, Marloes Coenen, Siyar Bahadurzada, Gokhan Saki and Sergey Kharitonov.

It’s behind the scenes, however, where several key players from coaches Cor Hemmers and Martijn de Jong to founders Ron Nyqvist, Frederico Lapenda and Bas Boon make Golden Glory run like a well oiled machine.

We recently spoke with Bas Boon about the past present and future of his esteemed Dutch-based “fight family.”

Just a friendly reminder that Golden Glory is hosting the last round of its 2010/2011 United Glory tournament Saturday afternoon in Moscow, so if you’re looking for something to do to kill some time before UFC 130, you can check out the pay-per-view on YouTube for $7.95 USD.

If you’re looking for something to do Saturday afternoon while you wait for UFC 128 to start, remember that Team Golden Glory will be streaming the second round of its $150,000 United Glory welterweight MMA and heavyweight kickboxing grand prix tournament for free starting at 2:00 pm ET.

The last show was pretty damn good and the stream was even better than some paid streams I’v bought. This one should be just as good with Golden Glory standouts like Siyar Bahadurzada and Gokhan Saki serving up heaping helpings of head and leg kicks for everyone’s viewing pleasure.

Here’s the promo:

(Video courtesy of YouTube/UnitedGlory)

Check out the full card and video highlight of the last event after the jump.

Heads up for those of you who forget such things: K-1′s World Grand Prix Finals are going down tonight/tomorrow/whatever in Japan, and will air live on HDNet Fights at 2am EST. Eight heavyweights from six countries (including at least one guy you should damn well be familiar with) will meet to do bodily harm to one another in the name of entertainment, and to determine whom you would least like to meet in a bar while hitting on his girlfriend.

A rundown of the brackets and the rest of the card are after the jump….

The K-1 World Grand Prix 2008 went down Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu, with Turkish kickboxer Gokhan Saki cruising through the event’s eight-man tournament thanks to three consecutive knockouts of Deutsch Puu, Rick Cheek, and Randy Kim. The GP’s quarterfinal round featured a match between Eric “Butterbean” Esch and Wesley “Cabbage” Correira, who previously fought in an MMA bout at Rumble on the Rock 8, where Butterbean won a doctor’s stoppage victory after two rounds. This time the ‘Bean wasn’t so lucky, as he suffered a head-kick knockout in the second round, which dropped his K-1 record to 2-4.

Another fighter who didn’t make it to the semis was American Gladiator/kickboxer Justice Smith, who lost a hard-fought decision to Mighty Mo Siligia — Mo was unable to continue to the GP’s second round, and was replaced by alternate Randy Kim, who knocked out Correira in the semis before being put down by Saki in the finals.

In the non-tourney superfights, K-1 World Heavyweight Champion Badr Hari needed all of seven seconds to knock out Domagoj Ostojic, and Min Soo Kim outlasted one-time UFC fighter Scott Junk to a unanimous decision win. Full results and video of the Hari/Ostojic knockout are after the jump. Props to MMA Mania and Bloody Elbow.